Viz at AX

Viz has announced two important acquisitions, they have acquired the Inuyasha TV series, as well as the Bastard!! manga. No release date is set for Inuyasha as Viz is shopping the TV series to broadcasters. The release schedule will be determined based on the TV plans. However, it appears that each DVD will contain 3 or 4 episodes per disc. Inuyasha is one of very few Anime TV series to go into a second season in the past five years and could very well go into a third season. The Inuyasha Movie is due out in Japan in January. The release schedule will be determined based on the TV plans. Bastard! will be released in a monthly, double size (64 pages) format, starting with a 72 page first issue.

A Video Girl Ai boxed west was expected out in December. The mistake in the second OVA, where the intro was dropped, will be corrected in the DVD release.

The long awaited Ranma season 1 boxed set is expected to be released in November, followed by the season 2 boxed set sometime in the first half of 2002. Regarding the possibility of ever getting Maison Ikkoku on DVD, they are still looking into finding a way to make it possible. Sales on the VHS have dropped to under 600 per volume, which, according to Anime On DVD is losing money. When questioned about internet petitions with several thousand names, Bill Flanagan pointed out that despite over 10 000 signatures on the unedited Dragon Ball manga petition sales did not increase by any where near that number when they published DB in an unedited format. Another issue is that Viz has only dubbed the first 36 episodes of Maison Ikkoku, and unless the DVD were to sell extremely well, the other episodes would remain subbed only. One possibility would be a sign up, pre-order only, similar to what AnimEigo does with some of his titles.

Viz has not yet decided upon a replacement for X/1999, if you have any suggestions e-mail extra@viz.com. Clamp titles such as Tokyo Babylon will not be considered until licensing issues regarding X/1999 get cleared up. Other titles under consideration are DNA² and I's

They will be removing obscure Japanese references from Ayashi no Ceres and replacing them with American references, however they will include an index of these edits at the back of every volume. If Ceres sells well Viz should release some of Yu Watase older titles such as Utopia and Pajama de Ojama.

Starting in August Chiho Saito will do some original covers for Animerica Extra. The August issue, which includes a feature on baseball in Japan, will feature a cover with the Utena Characters dressed up in baseball uniforms. She may also be doing the cover for the Halloween issue.

A fan's request to have a Key the Metal Idol boxed set was referred to by Viz's Toshi as “a good idea worth looking into.”